UP chamber to send team to Pakistan

To take the advantage of the thaw in Indo-Pak relations, a 27-member delegation of Uttar Pradesh's National Chamber of Industries and Commerce (NCIC) will visit Pakistan in August upon the invitation of the Lahore Chamber of Commerce & Industries (LCCI).

Talking to Business Standard on Tuesday, NCIC President Rajiv Gupta said the chamber had got up a delegation of 27 top industrialists of Agra and Firozabad, concerned with foundries, and the glass, leather, handicrafts, and automobile industries interested in either resuming their earlier business contacts in Pakistan or making fresh deals.

Apart from these, he said a number of diesel generator manufacturers of Agra would visit Pakistan to tap the market there. Agra generators are being exported to a number of African and Gulf countries but the market in Pakistan is yet to be explored in spite of it presenting opportunities to the Indian industrialists.

Also, automobile companies of Agra are also being represented in this delegation.

Gupta said the Lahore visit would help in forming a policy framework for the two countries to encourage business, with both the chambers building pressure on their respective governments to ease restrictions on cross-border trade.

He said the NCIC had invited the Karachi Chamber of Commerce & Industries for a tour of Agra, Karachi being the most important sea port of Pakistan.